Echoes of Silence by Marjorie Eccles

anything, not even to each other. Low Rigg Hall had become a house of secrets, a family together, but apart, each keeping their own counsel. None of them ever spoke of that time, but for Freya at least it was never absent from her thoughts. She had turned it over in her mind – the way things had happened and the way she wished things had happened – so often that everything had grown muddled and sometimes she wasn’t clear as to what the truth actually was. Added to that, her arthritis was troubling her so much she could think of little else and there were times when she didn’t need to pretend to be confused. And now – Wyn Austwick … She wished she’d never heard of the woman.
    â€˜When she gets back from Benidorm or wherever, she’s going to talk to Elf.’
    â€˜Elf?’ Dot asked sharply. ‘What on earth does she want with her?’
    â€˜She says she can make a better-rounded book if she speaks to everyone connected with the family.’
    Dot snorted. ‘She won’t get anything out of Elf, I’ll guarantee that!’
    Freya did not feel reassured. You never knew, with that young woman. Her daughters thought she judged Elf too harshly, but she was so wilful. From the moment she’d been introduced into the family, all their lives had begun to alter. A little, changeling thing, even as a baby but a few months old, she’d disrupted the household as none of the other children had ever been allowed to. Temper tantrums, sulks, screams, disobedience … there was no controlling her, there never had been, she did exactly as she pleased, except with Dot, who wouldn’t tolerate such behaviour from anyone, despite having a soft corner for the girl. But Elf never showed much affection for anyone except Philip – and then, for a short time, Peter, though that hadn’t lasted. It had always been Philip who had the patience to make the sun shine again for her … though alas, now even Philip was persona non grata . As the girl grew up, Freya came to think of her as an evil
spirit, but she couldn’t turn her out. And she’d grown out of all that nonsense now, of course, she was a controlled, self-possessed woman, who rarely lost her temper – but she never gave out her thoughts, either. And Freya had the feeling that they might be very dangerous indeed.
    â€˜Well,’ she sighed, ‘I just hope you’re right, Dot.’
    Â 
    Â 
    The bank had a recently constructed car-park, carved ingeniously from a sloping, awkwardly shaped, vacant space left by the demolition of an old-established pork-butcher’s premises which had lost the battle with the supermarkets. Shrubs and trees softened its edges. Admonitory notices forbade parking there by non-customers of the bank but in spite of that it was always full when the bank itself was nearly empty. The parking in Steynton, like everywhere else, got worse every day, thought Polly.
    It was a crisp, sunny day and she was content to sit at the wheel for a while, watching the last of the leaves float down from the trees, occasionally looking at her watch. It wasn’t like Ginny to be so late. That’s my privilege, Polly admitted with a wry grimace. They’d have finished serving lunches at the Woolpack if she didn’t arrive soon, and there was quite a bit they must talk about before Ginny was due back at her boutique – not least these so-called memoirs of their mother’s, which they wanted to discuss in peace and privacy. They’d also arranged to go and look at the house in Ingham’s Fold after a quick sandwich. Polly knew she could trust Ginny to give her a frank opinion, and she’d know just whether, or how, it could be fixed up to best advantage. That was one of the perks of having someone like Ginny, always so calmly certain of herself, as an elder sister.
    Where was she? Polly looked again at her watch and the dire possibility struck her … had